During this project, I deepened and honed my knowledge about Altium Designer (Version 20.0.10) software and how to do professional PCB design. Altium Designer is a professional software used to design all kinds of boards, from very simple ones to motherboards or servers. It is one of the most used software for electronic design.
I started with Arduino Uno reference schematic. I learned how to re-draw the schematic, modify it, I learned how to improve it and how to do PCB layout. and by the end of the project, I learned what documents are necessary to manufacture the board and how to create them.
during this project, I learned how :
- Draw schematic, including tips for component selection and important circuits
- Create components, draw schematic symbols and footprints
- Place components into your PCB
- Route PCB and useful tips about layout
- Create a 3D model of your board
- Create board variants with different components fitted / not fitted
- Create Bill of Material (BOM)
- Create assembly drawings showing the position of components on the board
- Generate Gerbers, Pick and Place, Drill file, and other files needed for manufacturing
- Prepare professional documents needed to manufacture your PCB and assemble your board
I. Creating my own libraries (schematics, footprints and adding a 3D model to each component)
III. Layer's stackup
V. Gerber files, mechanical and assembly drawing
VI. 3D model
VII. VII. Electromagnetic and Signal Integrity (SI) analysis and current density plot with ANSYS SIwave
Drawing the schematic and generating the footprint in my own using the Altium tool "footprint wizard". P.S: footprint's dimensions are taken from the component datasheet :
By taking advantage of the altium's features cross probe and components cross selection, i could select components from shematic sheet and at the same time they are selected in the PCB sheet, which make it easier to put couplage capacitors as close as possible to their power pins
standard dielectric thickness : 1.6mm
using vias to go from one layer to onother, I call this the "ping pong" routing
26 - Finished routing long connections, short connections and Power connections (Power connections are highlighted in the picture)
27 - Finished routing all the connections on the board and debugging and fixing all violations errors one by one
using the advanced simulation software especially designed for PCBs, i could do a current density analysis and generate an easy-to-understand plot
trace impedance analysis, some improvements and fixes must be done
